Burg Malchow, ruined hilltop castle in Bad Freienwalde (Oder), Germany

Burg Malchow is the ruin of a small hilltop castle on the plateau of the 77-metre Schlossberg, a spur of the Barnim highland northwest of Bad Freienwalde. It is listed as a large castle with a rectangular ground plan, and early German blue-grey pottery found there points to a German foundation of the early 13th century.

Burg Malchow is a small hilltop castle dated to the first two decades of the 13th century, probably founded by the Wettins on the Oder border. After the Askanian victory in 1245 it belonged permanently to the Mark Brandenburg. From 1369 to 1375 the brothers Heinrich I and Arnold I von Uchtenhagen held Freienwalde as a fief, and the castle stayed with the family until Hans V von Uchtenhagen died in 1618. From the 17th century it was quarried for stone.

The name Schlossberg comes from a legend that the castle was the seat of the von Uchtenhagen family, who held Freienwalde as a margravial fief from 1369 and kept the castle until the family died out with Hans V. von Uchtenhagen in 1618. The site is also called Malchow-Burg after old field names.

The ruin lies on the 77 m Schlossberg plateau, 2 km northwest of Bad Freienwalde and south of the B 167, on a spur that drops steeply toward the Oderbruch. The site is reached on foot; the slope is bounded on the southwest by the valley of the Klingendes Fließ stream. Nothing is built up here, so wear sturdy shoes.

On 11 August 1806, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and Princes Carl and Wilhelm of Prussia dug at the ruins with their tutors Delbrück and Reimann, turning up potsherds, burnt stones, ash and metal. Delbrück concluded from these finds that fire had destroyed the castle. A silver Meissen groschen, minted between 1338 and 1485, was found in September 1827 and kept by district administrator Leopold von Reichenbach.